


Nightmares

by Torched22



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:10:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torched22/pseuds/Torched22
Summary: Crowley's angel is suffering incredibly and distancing himself in ways that scare the demon.





	Nightmares

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

Aziraphale typically exuded a certain light, a happy and approachable aura that emanated from him in waves. Today, that exuberance was markedly absent. At first Crowley decided not to worry too much about it, perhaps he was misreading his friend? But as they sat down to lunch and the angel barely touched his meal, alarm bells went screaming off in his mind. 

"What's wrong? You love gnocchi and this place has the best, so something must be dreadfully wrong." 

Aziraphale lifted his gaze from where it was boring a hole into the table cloth and considered Crowley's question. He fixed his posture and attempted to plaster a smile to his face, which only resulted in a grin that felt and looked forced and fake. "The gnocchi is delicious." 

"You're avoiding the question." 

"Yes, well," he picked at his food, the silver of the fork clanking against the china. "I'm just feeling a little blue, that's all." 

Crowley's head snapped back in a gesture of disbelief. "You? Blue? Why in the heaven would you be blue? Did we not avert the total destruction of Earth?" 

This time, the grin was genuine, but it flickered and failed quickly, like a lightbulb that had used the last of its juice. "We did, and I am incredibly relieved by that fact..."

"Then what's the problem? Worried about heaven and hell's next attempt at the apocalypse?" 

"No."

"Then what is it," the demon asked, letting exasperation tint his tone.

"I'd rather not discuss it. It's nothing really." 

"Oh hell it isn't! I don't see you for three months, and then I do see you and you barely talk, you barely eat."

"I think I should go."

"Where? Why? We're not being bossed around anymore, it's not like you've got to go off and perform miracles."

"I would still like to help the humans as much as I can," he dabbed at his mouth, despite having nothing to remove. He began to push his chair back in preparation of leaving when Crowley's crumpled and broken voice brought him to a standstill.

"I thought we were friends."

The words hung heavy in the air and confusion twisted on Aziraphale's face. 

"Of course...of course we're friends," he said, inwardly dying at the fact that he'd ever said anything otherwise. He never should have shouted at Crowley in the bandstand and denied their quite obvious friendship...and he'd felt dreadfully guilty about that ever since. What Crowley didn't know was that it was quite hard for him to break the rules. It was terrifying to admit out loud that he had a bond with a demon. Heaven certainly wasn't proud of him for this fact. Before Crowley everything was so simple. He never broke the rules, never questioned the ineffable plan, never did anything that would be considered wrong. He had lived and breathed to make Her proud. 

"If we're friends, then you'd tell me what's going on."

"Oh, that's not fair."

"I think it is."

"Well it isn't. You can't use our friendship as leverage to just...get what you want from me," he was becoming flustered and liquid words slipped through his mental fingers faster than he could gather them. 

"Friends tell friends things," Crowley shot back, fully prepared to argue his point because he felt so hurt that Aziraphale was keeping something from him. "You knew the location of the antichrist before me and didn't tell me..."

"Those were different circumstances. Things were different."

"Oh what was different?" he hissed, face contorting. 

"That was before."

"Before what?" 

"Before we saved the word, before I felt..." Aziraphale suddenly stopped, his teeth locking shut on whatever words so nearly just escaped.

"Felt what?" 

"I must go now Crowley," he stood and put some money on the table next to a plate full of gnocchi and a glass full of wine and walked off.

Crowley would have scrubbed a hand over his face if his glasses wouldn't have gotten in the way. Instead, he balled up a fist and rested his jaw on it as his other hand reached for Azira's glass of wine. Getting inebriated seemed like the best and most immediate solution to remedy the storm of feelings gathering in his chest. It frustrated him to no end that he felt so damned much. Aziraphale, although always roped in by his conscious and duty to Her, was usually cooly detached in a way that Crowley coveted. He gave off a 'devil may care' vibe, but both he and Aziraphale knew that he cared very much. He hated it.

The wine kept flowing as the night progressed. Typically, Crowley wouldn't let drinking get to the point where it severely inhibited his ability to function - but he did tonight. 

After "dinner" he drove back to his flat and basically drowned himself in rich reds that sparkled like blood in his fancy wine glasses. He lit a fire in the hearth and settled in for a richly satisfying dive into self loathing and questioning every personal decision he'd ever made. He had about 6,000 years to cover, so it might be a long night. Although, he could break it up throughout the week and just soak in the well of despair and pity like pieces of stew simmering slowly in a crock pot.

You see, the trouble with being on the outs with the only other being you'd consider a friend, is that you cannot then go to that friend in such crises'. 

Now who would he talk to? He knew a handful of humans and could make friends as easily as he could draw breath. But those "friendships" with humans were pale facsimile's of he and Aziraphale's relationship...or friendship...or whatever it was. He'd rather not look to closely at that. 

So he drank instead. He drank and listened to overly-dramatic opera at ear splitting decibels. Good thing he'd thought to miracle it so that only he could hear it or his neighbors would throw a fit.

At about 2 am, he found himself drifting and decided that he ought to go to bed. After 6,000 years, he knew better than to go to bed drunk. He knew the kind of agonizing pain and suffering that would await his human vessel if he did so, but some part of his dark and twisted brain told him that he ought to be punished. Perhaps he would relish in the splash of vomit on the porcelain. Maybe he deserved the sweat that would bead at his forehead and the chills that would roll through him as his palms would lie flat on the tiled floor and pain overtook his head. 

He deserved it. 

That's what he felt.

It was a dark and terrible feeling that plagued him often. He knew the ins and outs of depression as if it were an old eternity-long friend who knew him as well as he knew himself. It's shape was familiar and when it came to visit, it stayed with a vengeance. 

He stumbled towards the bedroom and snapped himself into pajama bottoms as he flopped into bed. The headache was already forming, pain curling its dark fingers around his spinal cord and squeezing until the agony traveled farther upward. Maybe it would settle behind his eyes as a final resting spot. He yawned and shuffled himself under the covers. As his mind slipped into the soft haze of nonsense, he thought once more about how much he treasured sleep and if he were relegated to hell forever, that he'd never get to experience it again. This made him quite sad. He was gone, given in to slumber.

At first, he thought it was a dream. Perhaps he was dreaming. He heard Aziraphale, but not in a way he had ever heard before. The angel was...screaming. And crying. His breath came in gasps and sobs and if it was, at first, hard to discern who it was...it wasn't anymore, not when he screamed Crowley's name. It had the demon shooting up and out of bed. He expected for the heart wrenching sounds to stop, but they did not. Very clearly, he could hear his angel calling for him. 

Fear hit his chest like a cold splash to the face and he instantly sobered himself up. Not even sure how, he willed himself to the bookshop where Aziraphale resided in the upstairs home suite. Unaware he could do such a thing as teleport, he found himself stumbling in shock at first. But he knew the bookshop well and once he realized what he'd done, he flew up the stairs towards the still screaming Aziraphale.

Listening to the sound of it - the cries and struggle for breath and yells - it broke something deep and feral inside of Crowley. His heart squeezed in his chest as he came bursting into the angel's bedroom. All he could see at first was the white shout of Aziraphale's extended wings fluttering discordantly in every direction, knocking things off the walls and night stands. He rushed to him and extended his hands to try and grasp Aziraphale's shoulders.

"Angel! It's okay!" he shouted, noting that his friend was alone, tossing and turning, a prisoner of his own sheets. "Aziraphale! Wake up, wake up!" he pleaded, unable to bear any longer the sound of anguish that filled the room. Unfortunately, it was a struggle to wake him and the angel inadvertantly flung Crowley across the space where he smashed into a rather solid dresser and dripped to the floor in a puddle of skin and bones. Struggling, he stood and continued his efforts to wake Aziraphale.

"It's alright," he shook his friend more ferverntly this time and saw the moment that consciousness returned to him. 

The angel's blue eyes flew open and tears flowed from them. He struggled to catch his breath, and at first, he skidded backwards on the bed - away from Crowley. Shock and confusion and desperation and love and relief all flitted through his expressions like a dealer shuffling cards.

"Crowley?" his voice was weak and choked. "Is this real? Are you really here?"

"Yes, of course," Crowley came up on the bed, kneeling. "I'm real, I'm here, everything's alright angel." Before the last few words even left his lips, Aziraphale was in his arms sobbing into the crook of his neck. 

"You're okay," he said in an astonished tone between sobs. "God, you're okay, please, I need you." 

"I'm right here," it was hard to hug the angel back with his wings extended, and he could tell, even in the dark that he'd hurt them badly. Moisture rolled down his bare shoulder and down onto both his back and chest. Aziraphale was trembling and between his sobs, Crowley could hear blood dripping from his wings and onto the hardwood floor.

"You've hurt your wings," Crowley worried, but his friend didn't seem to care. Azira folded them back into the plane of existence they were typically kept in, blood and all. 

"I need to fix them..."

"No...not now...I don't care..."

Crowley's throat tightened. It wasn't like Aziraphale to veer away from taking care of necessary or practical matters. 

"Tell me..." he whispered to Aziraphale, and the angel withdrew slowly, his piercingly sad eyes bright enough to break a soul. It shocked Crowley when rather than answer, Aziraphale brought his hands to the back of Crowley's hair to card through the red tresses. His eyes were raking over Crowley's face and spent a long time lingering on his lips. His own mouth was quivering. 

The angel's face began to crumple and more tears streamed down his pale cheeks. 

"No...don't cry," Crowley wiped the tears away, noticing that tears were gathering in his own eyes. 

"I used to like sleep," Aziraphale said. "But after the almost apocalypse, I had such horrid nightmares. I don't need to sleep, so I avoided it. But...but...I grew so tired, so very tired. I had never felt like that before, like I needed to sleep. But I did. So I did...sleep I mean. And every time," his voice cracked. "Every time they make me have the same dream," his features were wrung in such anguish that tears did slip from Crowley's eyes. 

"Who is they? Heaven?" 

The angel's lips moved but no sound came out, his worried eyes were downcast. "I think it's Gabriel and...and Beelzebub."

"Tell me...what's the dream?" 

Aziraphale suddenly seemed dim and haggard, exhaustion slipped into the bags beneath his eyes and there were wrinkles that Crowley didn't remember seeing before. The question only made Aziraphale move into his space once more and cling to him. He held on so tight that Crowley thought he might snap in half. Instead of answering, his friend just said, "please stay. Stay with me. I need you." 

"Of course I'll stay," his own voice sounded foreign and strained. A very upset angel was practically in his lap and he wanted to murder both Gabriel and Beelzebub. He wouldn't even detach so that they could lie down, Crowley just had to maneuver them the best he could into the bed. Aziraphale kept digging his face into his neck and grasping at his hair with his right hand. His left hand wound around Crowley's waist and clutched at his bare skin. 

In their 6,000 years as...whatever they were...never had they shared the same bed. Aziraphale usually shied away from hugs and such as well. So to be in his bed, naked from the waist up, pressed tightly against an Aziraphale whose arms wrapped him in a warm vice of flesh was...mind boggling. Whatever was going on, it was very serious. 

He felt Zira breathing in deeply, memorizing his scent, and entwining their legs. The moan that escaped him couldn't be controlled and he froze in fear that Aziraphale would retreat or disappear in panic or reach some level of wakefulness that would have him flustered and apologetic. But none of that happened. If anything, the grip tightened. He relaxed. Breathed.

"Goodnight angel," he whispered, stroking his angel's back, trying to ignore the drying blood. It was in that moment, as the clouds outside obscured the moonlight that had flooded the room, that he realized the little spat he'd had with the angel at the restaurant...wasn't about him. He was pushing him to reveal something he wasn't ready to discuss, or it wasn't the right place to discuss it. His angel was basically being tortured and...heaven...he'd been so foolish to let, now, four months go by without knowing...

Aziraphale had been intentionally putting distance between them, that much was apparent now. That distance wasn't what the angel really wanted though...not judging from the unrelenting grasp he had on his body. Maybe he was trying to protect him from the very torture that he suffered. One thing was for sure, Crowley felt blind and foolish and broken in brand new ways. 

The angel must have been tired because his breath evened out and soon lulled Crowley to sleep as well.


End file.
